Former President Donald Trump made the first of two public appearances in Detroit on Saturday with an appeal to the city’s Black community, repeating his longtime claim that his presidency "did more for the Black population" than any president since Abraham Lincoln.
"We achieved the lowest African American unemployment rate and the lowest African American poverty rate ever recorded — ever, ever recorded — during my four years," Trump said, though the Black unemployment rate reached its record-lowest point (4.8%) last April, and the Black poverty rate fell to a lowest-ever 17.1% in 2022, per the U.S. Census Bureau.
His roundtable event at 180 Church in Detroit was moderated by vice presidential hopeful Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who walked on stage to chants of "V-P! V-P!"
Trump and Donalds were joined by a handful of church community members who were clearly not fans of the Biden presidency, including a retired military veteran who urged Trump to "not allow [military members] to walk around wearing red high-heeled shoes."
"Our soldiers are real soldiers. They’re not going woke," Trump replied, after blaming Biden for the chaotic withdrawl of American troops from Afghanistan in 2021 — a withdrawl plan and execution that Biden and Trump have each blamed each other for.
The event largely saw Trump continue his attacks against Biden and his policies, and leaping on his favorite topics with little pretense. After a question from restauranteur Omar Mitchell, in which he was asked how he would "ensure young people are given the opportunities and challenges to keep growing," Trump made a comment about small buinsess lending becoming "almost impossible" before discussing his "very good" but "tough" relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump, upon prodding about housing from a panelist, also took credit for Section Eight housing that he and his father — real estate mogul Fred Trump — built. (The Trumps were sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination in 1973, accused of policies created to not rent apartments to Black people, Puerto Ricans "or any other type of undesirable applicant," according to a former Trump Management employee interviewed by the FBI in 1974. The Trumps settled the lawsuit — a settlement which allowed them to not admit guilt — by signing a consent order.)
Trump also took an opportunity to blame immigration for a perceived decline in the auto industry, insisting that migrants have taken automotive jobs and that Michigan has lost "more than 50% of the automobile making capacity." Michigan’s auto manufacturing jobs, as a percentage of jobs within the state, have trended slightly downward from early 2021, currently at 3.7%, after recovering from the 2020 pandemic recession. At its highest point within the last decade, auto manufacturing jobs made up 4.1% of jobs in Michigan — a mark reached a few times during both the Trump and Biden administrations.
President Joe Biden's reelection campaign condemned Trump's outreach efforts to the Black community as an "eleventh hour attempt."
"Black voters haven’t forgotten that this man entered public life calling for the death penalty for the innocent Central Park 5 and entered political life spreading racist conspiracy theories about Barack Obama," Biden-Harris 2024 Director of Black Media Jasmine Harris said in a statement. "We haven’t forgotten that Black unemployment and uninsured rates skyrocketed when Trump was in the White House. And we sure haven’t forgotten Trump repeatedly cozying up to white supremacists and demonizing Black communities to his political benefit – because that’s exactly what he’ll do if he wins a second term."
"Black voters sent Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House in 2020, and they’re ready to make Donald Trump a two-time loser in 2024," Harris added.
The former president continued his tour Saturday night at a Turning Point Action conference, an event that seemed akin to a Trump-themed concert, complete with a video wall and a light show.
During a speech that ran nearly an hour and a half long, Trump repeated his baseless claim that elections in the U.S. have been rigged, priming the pump for an election challenge should he be defeated by Biden in 2024.
"You gotta watch your vote, because they destroy votes, they terminate your vote, they do all sorts of things," Trump said.
While criticizing Biden, challenging the Democratic incumbent to a cognitive test, Trump touted his own passage of a cognitive test.
"I think he should take a cognitive test like I did, and I aced it. Doc Ronny Johnson — does everyone know who Ronny Johnson is?" Trump said.
Trump did pass a cognitive exam according to his personal White House physician, who had also served as personal physician to President Barack Obama.
However, the physician who gave him that cognitive exam — who now serves as a Republican congressman from Texas — is named Ronny Jackson, not Johnson.